My husband glanced at me before answering the doctor’s question about when I had first asked to be taken in. He gave the time as closely as he could remember it, then stopped when I quietly corrected him.
“It was earlier,” I said. “I asked before you went upstairs.”
One of the relatives in the doorway nodded. “She did. I heard her.”
My mother-in-law immediately said, “That doesn’t mean she was in labor.”
The doctor ignored her and asked the relative what she remembered.
She hesitated, and for one terrible second I thought she was going to retreat simply because challenging my mother-in-law was uncomfortable. Then she looked at me on the bathroom floor, at the towel around my newborn, and answered.
“She asked for someone to take her in. I came into the hall because I heard her. His mother told me it was indigestion and said she had everything under control.”
My husband’s face tightened.
The doctor asked, “And what happened after that?”
The relative swallowed. “We were told to go back to bed.”
My mother-in-law stepped forward. “Because everybody was crowding her. I was trying to settle things down.”
“No,” I said. My voice was weak, but it came out clearly. “I was asking you to help me.”
My husband crouched beside me again. The baby had stopped screaming and was making small, uneven sounds against my chest. That frightened me more than the crying had.
“The baby got quieter,” I told the doctor.
